Dedicato a Susan Alcorn è anche l'album che Mike Cooper ha appena pubblicato per Room40, Eternal Equinox, una decina di brani registrati a Valencia l'anno scorso in affascinante equilibrio tra improvvisazione e composizione: "These pieces started out as simple improvisations on my virtual pedal steel inspired by the compositions of Kevin Good played by pedal steel guitar player Matt Sargent on their record Trails. Simple melodic minimalistic pieces. Eventually as I listened back to my improvisations other textures and timbre suggested themselves and more complex compositions came to light."
10 giugno 2025
"For a long time, Susan Alcorn lived a double life. At night, she would play in dance halls and honky-tonks around Houston, Texas; during the day, she would hole up by herself to study avant-garde jazz and free improvisation. Her chosen instrument, the pedal steel guitar, was associated with country and western and virtually unheard of in other genres. Alcorn kept her professional performances separate from her private obsessions until, by chance, the roles were reversed. By the time of her passing in January of 2025, she had reinvented both herself and her instrument, proving that the pedal steel could be adapted into any style of music." Così inizia il ritratto che Matthew Blackwell traccia di Susan Alcorn (1953-2025) a beneficio dei visitatori di Bandcamp, suggerendo (e incoraggiando) un primo percorso nella sua discografia: Susan Alcorn’s Revolutionary Pedal Steel.
09 giugno 2025
Notizia invece non buona per gli appassionati dei Residents è la prematura conclusione delle pubblicazioni di Melodic Virtue, editrice con sede nell'Indiana (Stati Uniti) responsabile dei due magnifici volumi della serie cronologica A Sight For Sore Eyes usciti nel 2022 e 2023 contenenti moltissimi materiali grafici e iconografici originali tratti dagli archivi della Cryptic Corporation. Il titolare Aaron Tanner proseguirà le proprie attività in altra forma e senza interrompere del tutto i rapporti con il gruppo, ma di certo i due ulteriori volumi previsti e promessi subiranno forti ritardi (o uno stop definitivo).
08 giugno 2025
Altra ottima notizia per gli appassionati dei Residents è la ripubblicazione di GOD O: Music for a Gallery Opening, l'album solista - il suo primo - del compianto Hardy Fox (1945-2018) contenente le musiche da lui create per l'inaugurazione di una mostra di opere dell'amico/collega Homer Flynn, diffuse in due riprese nel 2012 utilizzando lo pseudonimo Charles Bobuck. Walter Robotka, titolare della viennese Klanggalerie, ne ha meritoriamente prodotto una versione in due cd arricchita di inediti e rielaborazioni di altri brani targati Bobuck solo in parte già noti, God Damn Chickens e Gosh Darn Chickens.
GOD-O: Music for a Gallery Opening (later reissued as GOD O: Music for a Gallery Opening) is the first solo album by Charles Bobuck, long-time keyboardist and composer for The Residents, featuring a forty minute suite recorded in 2011 for the opening night of an exhibition of artwork by Homer Flynn at Johansson Projects in Oakland, California. It was released via The Residents' online music platform Robot Selling Device on March 14th 2012, and later as an expanded CD release by The Cryptic Corporation. On May 20th 2025, GOD O was reissued by Klanggalerie in a deluxe two CD package featuring a previously unheard thirty minute version of God Damn Chickens, as well as reworked versions of the songs which had previously been released on the 2012 digital EP Gosh Darn Chickens.
07 giugno 2025
Probabilmente è il loro album più famoso - opera assolutamente originale, accompagnata all'epoca (1979) da misteriosissimi retroscena e al contempo da un'immagine pubblica strepitosa - eppure in oltre 45 anni non lo hanno mai eseguito dal vivo per intero. Succederà finalmente oggi pomeriggio a Los Angeles - tumulti e scontri cittadini permettendo, in crescente opposizione ai violenti raid anti-migranti - al festival Exotikon interamente dedicato all'Alieno e al Bizzarro. Protagonisti i Residents in persona: Eskimo.
Created over a period of three years (work began shortly after The Third Reich 'N' Roll was released), Eskimo was unlike anything anyone had heard before. Instead of an album made up of songs, The Residents produced a series of acoustic landscapes: each track is the sound of a story taking place, rather than the traditional song telling a story. The idea for the album is supposed to have come from the band's former collaborator, the Mysterious N. Senada, who had disappeared in the early 70s to search for music among the Eskimos (legend has it that he re-appeared during the making of the album with a tape of sound samples and a jar of arctic air to record). The Residents teamed up with drummer Chris Cutler and Don Preston (formerly a keyboard player for Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention), as well as their regular collaborator, Snakefinger. Inspired by such pieces of pop culture as the famous Santa Claus Coca-Cola ads, The Residents set about inventing an anthropological background for their Eskimos which didn't bear much resemblance to reality, but instead was based on pop perceptions of the northern peoples (nevertheless, the USSR release was classified as a "cultural documentary"). Each track relates a story which was told in writing on the inside of the album's gatefold cover. The stories are progressively more complex and dig deeper into the fictional Eskimo culture, starting with a simple Walrus Hunt and ending with a confrontation with the spirit world and a Festival of Death celebrating the end of the six-month night. The album shows, as did the mini-ballet Six Things to a Cycle on Fingerprince, the influence of Harry Partch. Like Partch, The Residents invented their own language and instruments. Most of the fake Eskimo tongue is made up of highly distorted English and is sung while breathing in to give it an alien texture. As the album progresses you can hear the slow invasion of American culture into the Eskimo lives as the Eskimo's spiritual leader, the Angakok, leads them in chants whose nonsense language becomes corrupted with phrases such as "Coca-Cola Adds Life".
Eskimo almost didn't happen. When Duck Stab turned into a big success, the Cryptic Corporation started to promote it heavily. The Residents became worried that the business may have been moving too quickly - not to mention the possibility that the promotions might endanger their anonymity. The Residents were already somewhat afraid that Eskimo might turn out to be dull and pretentious so they grabbed master tapes and disappeared. Desperate for some material to release (the band disappeared the day before the tapes were to go to pressing), the Cryptics pulled an old master tape off of the shelves and released that instead. It was an unnamed album which was never meant to be released, dubbed Not Available by the Corporation. It turned out that the group had flown to England and left the tapes with Chris Cutler. John Kennedy and Jay Clem of the Cryptic Corporation flew over to collect the tapes, which Cutler had been keeping at the National Safe Deposit Box Company in London. The New Wave press, which had become rather caught up in The Residents after Duck Stab, were quite keen on the whole "disappearing Residents" story, so the Corporation milked the event for its publicity value, playing up the mystery of The Residents' disappearance and releasing press photos of the tape exchange. The Residents themselves weren't in England. They had apparently gone on to Japan, then reappeared in San Francisco shortly after the tapes were recovered. On their return, the Cryptic Corporation presented them with a new 16-track recording studio as an apology for the misunderstanding. To celebrate the reunion, the band used their new toy to record Santa Dog '78, which, along with the original Santa Dog was given away free as a single to everyone on the Ralph Records mailing list as a Christmas gift in a package which included the story of the disappearance.
When it finally did come out, Eskimo had one other eye-catching feature: it had the first cover featuring the Residents' newest costumes, the Eyeball heads. Originally the band had wanted silver spheres reflecting the arctic mists, but that idea proved impractical. The eye-heads, second choices though they were, turned out to be a powerful image: the costumes were so incredibly identifiable that they became the trademark look for the band. In spite of The Residents' fears about possible pretentiousness, Eskimo was a huge critical success. The music press in the UK loved it, hailing it as a huge milestone in the new music. Sales were phenomenal for an independent, underground album. The first pressing of 10,000 copies on snow-white vinyl sold out quickly. The adulation was so strong, in fact, that the band was afraid that their Eyeball-heads might get swollen from all the praise. To forestall this the band spoofed their own albums by creating a disco version called Diskomo. Released as a single, this instrumental work has gone through a number of revisions over its history.
06 giugno 2025
Aria di festa oggi anche per Richard Sinclair, che invita amici vicini e lontani ad unirsi al cin cin per i suoi 77 anni in allegra compagnia - anche da remoto, se non personalmente in Valle d'Itria - e nel contempo celebrare l'uscita del secondo volume di suoi inediti con la Caravan of Dreams: Live 91-93. Cheers!
05 giugno 2025
E di anni ne avrebbe compiuti oggi novanta Misha Mengelberg (1935-2017): per ricordarlo si tiene stasera uno speciale concerto dell'ICP Orchestra al culmine di un intero ciclo di eventi celebrati ad Amsterdam in suo nome, Misha Kosmos Festival.
Misha Mengelberg (Kiev, 5 June 1935), leader of the Instant Composers Pool Orchestra, is a trickster figure in Dutch composing and international improvised music: a philosophical thinker about musical issues who doesn’t take himself seriously, but who helped bring about government subsidies for composed and improvised music (which he dubbed ‘instant composition’) in the Netherlands in the 1960s and 70s. He has brought compositional procedures to improvised music with ICP, and quasi-improvised insubordination to his composing. As jazz pianist, he draws on early idols Thelonious Monk (an unhurried gait, dense impacted chords) and Herbie Nichols (harmonies that subvert traditional patterns). In the late 1960s Mengelberg helped develop the “European improvised music” that splintered off of jazz, along with his lifelong drummer Han Bennink. Mengelberg’s 1960s “game pieces” anticipate later works by his friend and benefactor John Zorn. In the 1990s ICP became increasingly recognized internationally, for its live collaging operations and Mengelberg’s elegantly witty writing. His classical works are likewise noted for fetching melodies and unpredictable developments.
The ICP Orchestra has been a household name for years. In 1967, Han Bennink together with pianist/composer Misha Mengelberg laid the foundation for this versatile orchestra, known as one of the most creative groups in modern jazz. Mengelberg passed away in 2017 and would have turned 90 exactly on this day, June 5, 2025. The ICP Orchestra still plays his music, but of course in the typical ICP style; while Mengelberg’s oeuvre is the starting point, no concert sounds the same and the orchestra members improvise in all directions. The musicians in the ICP Orchestra learned to deal with the peculiarities of timing or intonation of fellow players, how to confuse their colleagues, how to bend or undermine the music during performance. The music is full of surprises, unexpected turns, nimble grace and strange outbursts.
04 giugno 2025
Gran festa questa sera per gli ottant'anni di Anthony Braxton con una serata di gala a Brooklyn NY al Roulette tra amici, colleghi, discepoli e invitati specialissimi. Champagne, Maestro!
Anthony Braxton (b. 1945), the Chicago-born composer and multi-instrumentalist, is recognized as one of the most important musicians, educators, and creative thinkers of the past 50 years. He is highly esteemed in the experimental music community for the revolutionary quality of his work and for the mentorship and inspiration he has provided to generations of younger musicians. Drawing upon a disparate mix of influences from John Coltrane to Karlheinz Stockhausen, Braxton has created a unique musical system that celebrates the concept of global creativity and our shared humanity. His work examines core principles of improvisation, structural navigation and ritual engagement - innovation, spirituality, and intellectual investigation.
From his early work as a pioneering solo performer in the late 1960s through to his eclectic experiments on Arista Records in the 1970s, his landmark quartet of the 1980s, and more recent endeavors, such as his cycle of Trillium operas and the day-long, installation-based Sonic Genome Project, his vast body of work is unparalleled. His small ensembles of the 1970s to present day are considered among the most innovative groups of their respective eras, while his Creative Orchestra Music has brought together the varying streams of American jazz orchestras, marching bands, and experimental practices with the traditions of European concert music in a wholly individual compositional voice.
His continuing and evolving current systems of the past 15 years, including Ghost Trance Music, Diamond Curtain Wall Music, Falling River Music, Echo Echo Mirror House Music, and ZIM Music, have served as the artistic incubators for some of the most exciting artists of the current generation.
03 giugno 2025
Se non ora, quando? A sentir loro - Dave Stewart e Barbara Gaskin - entro la fine dell'anno...
Dave & Barbara release their music on their own Broken Records label (distributed by Burning Shed) and perform live as a trio or quartet. Having enlisted guitarist Beren Matthews, the Stewart / Gaskin band performed successful Autumn 2018 headlining concerts in Tokyo and London, the latter also featuring master drummer Gavin Harrison. Dave, Barbara and Beren returned to Tokyo in November 2019 and emerged from lockdown with a memorable 40-year anniversary concert at London's Kings Place on Saturday July 9th 2022. Having performed three further Tokyo concerts in April 2023, the trio made a triumphant return to Kings Place Hall One on August 5th 2023. Our CDs, signed vinyl singles and Dave's Inside The Music ebooks are available from our Stewart / Gaskin online store, operated by our long-standing colleagues Burning Shed. All sales revenue goes directly to the musicians with no record company involvement.
We're now working on an 8th album of all-new music and hoping to play a UK concert in late 2025. If you fancy seeing us live, please add your name to our Stewart-Gaskin Gig Register and we'll message you directly. Simply email us at davebarb2@gmail.com with the subject line 'Gig Register', tell us your name, country of residence (important) and how many tickets you're likely to need. You'll then be on our priority list for early bird concert alerts, preferred seating and other perks associated with our performances. Rest assured we won't share your contact details or overburden you with emails.
02 giugno 2025
Buona idea quella di Ámarxe di pubblicare anche su supporto fisico l'album Long Time Gone di Dirk 'Mont' Campbell, probabilmente il suo ultimo, diffuso qualche mese fa solo in formato digitale tramite Bandcamp. E ottima idea quella di aggiungervi un brano precedente ma inedito, La Livinière, pieno di riferimenti a Kevin Ayers e Egg (anzi, scritta proprio pensando a loro).
01 giugno 2025
Circola da oggi la newsletter #63 di Jean-Paul Marillier che contiene il riassunto delle novità wyattiane con le aggiunte e le modifiche degli ultimi mesi negli archivi dell'impareggiabile Une discografie de Robert Wyatt, in perenne e continua espansione. C'è anche la seconda parte della selezione di cover indicate come preferite da lettori e collaboratori, tutte disponibili all'ascolto nell'inesauribile Radio Robert.
31 maggio 2025
30 maggio 2025
Alla chiusura del celebre UFO, luogo principe della scena underground della Londra del 1967, il testimone passò al Middle Earth, anch'esso in zona Covent Garden, attivo di giorno come luogo d'incontro e di commercio alternativo e animatissimo ogni sera con le musiche proposte da John Peel e Jeff Dexter tra fumi/fiumi di incenso, vertiginosi light show e le esibizioni dei principali campioni locali e internazionali del rock psichedelico. A quella sua breve stagione, durata un paio d'anni appena, è dedicata Middle Earth-The Soundtrack of London’s Legendary Psychedelic Club 1967-1969, ennesima - e gradita - compilazione tematica di Cherry Red contenente ricordi e testimonianze di protagonisti e testimoni, documenti grafici e fotografici, note illustrative e oltre una sessantina di brani in ordine più o meno cronologico: per esempio Soft Machine, Julie Driscoll con Brian Auger & The Trinity, Chris McGregor, Arthur Brown, Third Ear Band, Blossom Toes, la Bonzo Doo Dah Dog Band e l'Incredible String Band, Traffic, Family, The Who, Yes, Ten Years After, Yardbirds, Captain Beefheart, Jefferson Airplane e The Fugs.
Scrive John Barlass per At The Barrier: "For a short while, way back then, we thought we could change the world. Our music could make the world a better place. People would hear it and become more like us, less like them. We really believed that. Trouble was, there were so many who didn’t – and never would – believe like we did; hostile market porters, voracious drug squads or people who just felt plain daft sitting cross-legged on the floor of an incense-and-dope-scented, oil-disc illuminated, low ceilinged room for hours on end. They just didn’t get it. So the revolution never happened, but we had so much fun trying to make it happen…"
29 maggio 2025
In che modo e perché sia giunto a scegliere la voce di Robert Wyatt per alcuni momenti cruciali del suo film Fuori - al debutto in questi giorni nelle sale cinematografiche italiane dopo la presentazione a Cannes - Mario Martone lo spiega a Variety: "I never think about the music before shooting, never. I usually almost always use repertoire. And I work on it when I edit. So I started editing and I was looking for a female voice to create a sonorous off-voice, evocative of a Goliarda. But we never come across the right voice. And then, I don’t even know how, from what corner of my mind Robert Wyatt came to me. The fragility of his voice, the vitality and at the same time that sense of anxiety, that is in his songs. So I thought: who cares if it’s a male voice, it’s the voice of a soul. And it was a soul that suddenly I felt was able to have an intense dialogue with the soul of Goliarda Sapienza." Nel film, assieme alle musiche originali di Valerio Vigliar e varie altre citazioni, ci sono Memories, Blues in Bob Minor, Little Red Riding Hood Hit The Road, The British Road e Round Midnight.
https://lucysullacultura.com/appunti-su-fuori-di-mario-martone
28 maggio 2025
Mary Halvorson racconta a Jazzwise della profonda importanza di Rock Bottom nella sua esperienza di (relativamente) giovane ascoltatrice prima e di musicista in proprio poi, al punto da spingerla in anni successivi a intraprendere un rapporto diretto con Robert Wyatt, seppure a distanza, sfociato infine nella collaborazione di Artlessly Falling (Firehouse 12 records, 2020).
"When you’re a teenager and you hear things for the first time they have an incredible impact; and I certainly had experiences like that at that age. But it’s much rarer that you get that kind of impact later in life; and this is one of those records for me. I say ‘later in life’ - I probably heard it when I was 27, so I was still a young person; but by that point, I’d heard so much music. It was nice to go into something with no preconceived notions; and it doesn’t happen that often, because usually you know something about whatever it is. It felt like discovering something that I couldn’t believe I’d been missing my whole life! To have that experience when I was a little older was great. I don’t know if I’d heard it when I was younger whether I’d have made sense of it? Perhaps it was the perfect time for me to hear it."
27 maggio 2025
26 maggio 2025
Nella gamma di collaborazioni e commissioni che, unitamente al proprio apporto compositivo, hanno costellato il percorso di Guy Klucevsek nella costruzione di un repertorio inedito e innovativo per la fisarmonica contemporanea spiccano le vicende con la Ain't Nothin' But A Polka Band e con il quartetto Accordion Tribe - quelle che assieme ad alcuni tour de force zorniani gli hanno forse assicurato la maggiore notorietà - ma non sono da dimenticare quelle in ambito jazzistico con le formazioni di Dave Douglas, di Michael Moore e di Bill Frisell, le esperienze di elettronica e psicoacustica con Pauline Oliveros e Alvin Lucier, le frequenti puntate nel teatro, nella danza, quelle apprezzatissime nel circo e quelle al servizio delle creazioni artistiche di Keith LoBue. Qualche episodio c'è stato anche al cinema, come voluto da Anita Blumer per Augusto Boal o da Roberta Torre per Mare nero, e da John Williams in tre o quattro orchestrazioni per Steven Spielberg. Chi è interessato alle parti scritte dei brani originali del Nostro ne trova un buon numero in Vignettes (Starkland, 2020) o al suo sito web.
25 maggio 2025
Starkland, Tzadik, Winter & Winter e Intuition - ma anche Zoar, Cri, Innova e RecRec - sono i principali cataloghi da sfogliare per ritrovare le meravigliose opere discografiche lasciate negli anni da Guy Klucevsek. L'ultimo, gioiosissimo Little Big Top - registrato nell'ottobre 2023 nonostante il grave avanzamento della malattia - è uscito per la newyorkese Motéma Music e contiene tutte sue composizioni eseguite in quartetto con Volker Goetze, Jeff Hudgins e Doug Wieselman. Poco prima, in più intimo assetto di solo, duo o trio, era uscita (nuovamente per Starkland, ma solo in formato digitale) una delle sue più toccanti e personali antologie: Hope Dies Last.
24 maggio 2025
23 maggio 2025
Sui negativi originali in 35 mm ritrovati in archivio ha a lungo lavorato Lana Topham per il restauro, probabilmente definitivo, del celebre film dei Pink Floyd a Pompei diretto da Adrian Maben e girato principalmente nell'anfiteatro romano e nei pressi della solfatara di Pozzuoli a inizio ottobre 1971, con ulteriori riprese effettuate a Parigi e Londra alla vigilia della pubblicazione di The Dark Side of the Moon. Esce in edizione completa in dvd contestualmente a una serie di proiezioni pubbliche in cinema specializzati, assieme a una versione audio, per la prima volta ufficiale, riveduta e corretta da Steven Wilson: Pink Floyd at Pompeii - MCMLXXII.
22 maggio 2025
Perché siano rimaste cinquant'anni negli archivi senza esser mai ufficializzate lo spiega bene Joe Travers, infallibile Vaultmeister zappiano che pure non le seppe subito identificare: "I had no idea what they were or what they were for. They remained a mystery for years. The digital transfers of the elements happened over a long period of time, mostly due to budget and priority. Some were done for identification purposes while Gail Zappa was alive during the 2000s. Imagine how exciting it was for us to finally discover what this stuff actually looked like for the first time. It was a gold mine waiting to be unearthed." Sono le registrazioni audio e video, di ottima qualità entrambe, del concerto indoor che Frank Zappa fece filmare nella propria sala prove a Hollywood il 21 giugno 1974 allo scopo di poterle poi diffondere tramite le principali stazioni televisive statunitensi dell'epoca: al suo fianco aveva una delle più amate formazioni delle Mothers, con George Duke, Napoleon Murphy Brock, Ruth Underwood, Chester Thompson, Tom Fowler e il figliol prodigo Jeff Simmons. Sono ora disponibili al pubblico in varie edizioni - alcune tutt'altro che cheap - con un ricco corredo di documenti informativi, grafici e fotografici: Cheaper than Cheep.
On the first day of summer, June 21, 1974, Zappa and his band, the Mothers of Invention, invited a small audience to the their humble rehearsal hall on Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood, Calif., for what would be an intoxicating, sweat-drenched two-hour-plus performance. A small film crew equipped with multiple cameras captured every riveting musical moment while the audio was recorded by a mobile recording truck. Unfortunately, when Zappa watched the footage he was devastated to learn, that similar to his Roxy project before it, the audio and video weren’t synchronized. Two months later, Zappa would team up with the Los Angeles-based PBS station KCET and get the sought-after TV special he wanted, later released commercially as The Dub Room Special. As a result, the June concert that he planned to shop to major TV networks was shelved, never to be revisited by Zappa in his lifetime. It languished in The Vault for more than five decades. Now, more than 50 years after that magical, sweltering summer night in 1974, thanks to advancements in post-production editing tools, fans can experience the concert as if they were there in the front row.
21 maggio 2025
Dagli archivi emerge un nuovo bell'inedito degli In Cahoots di Phil Miller: si tratta di un concerto tenuto a Utrecht (Paesi Bassi) nel 1997 in accoppiata con i Caravan, non immediatamente identificato da Aymeric Leroy - che per il Phil Miller-The Legacy cura anche la graduale pubblicazione dei concerti del Nostro - ma poi confermato come quello del 27 settembre di quell'anno. Il gruppo, alle prese con il materiale di Parallel (Crescent Discs, 1996), era allora un sestetto con Miller, Elton Dean, Jim Dvorak, Pete Lemer, Fred Baker e Pip Pyle.
https://philmillerthelegacy.com/music/in-cahoots-utrecht-1997
20 maggio 2025
Dagli archivi di Dave Sinclair il figlio Nic identifica e restaura, a più di cinquant'anni di distanza, i nastri dimenticati di alcune session casalinghe registrate alla buona e condotte in via informale da papà - fuoriuscito temporaneamente dai Caravan, poco dopo In the Land of Grey and Pink - assieme a un piccolo nucleo di musicisti, in particolare con il chitarrista e grande amico John Murphy: si ascoltano in Homemade Jams, su Bandcamp.
"I left Caravan for the first time in August 1971, a few months after recording the album In the Land of Grey and Pink. The other musicians in the band by that time had invested in newer more powerful amplification and during a gig I sometimes couldn’t actually hear what I was playing. Added to that, life on the road was becoming less appealing playing almost the same set every night. I decided I drastically needed a complete change and, when I said I was thinking of leaving the band, incredibly, no one including our manager tried to persuade me otherwise. Soon after leaving I met up with John Murphy, a guitarist, singer, and song writer, and from that moment on we became close friends and musician buddies, exploring many songs, rhythms, and melodies together. Later on, with a drummer, and occasionally a bass guitar, we enjoyed a number of jam sessions, most of which we recorded on a small tape recorder using a single microphone. The music was raw, edgy and sometimes didn’t go anywhere, but there were many enlightening moments and very enjoyable times."
19 maggio 2025
Dagli archivi di un progetto di metà anni Novanta chiamato Far Cry, comprendente Lisa Smith-Klossner, Hugh Hopper - che all'epoca amava cimentarsi con il Cubase - e Mark Hewins, esce su Bandcamp in forma di album una collezione di dieci brani inediti o noti solo in parte, magari in altre versioni: The Living Room Archive.
18 maggio 2025
Quattro momenti dell'incontro di Caroline Kraabel con Teresa Hackel a Londra il mese scorso sono riportati in ordine temporale in Durst Dust, su Bandcamp: Run, Filaments, Succinct e Disappearance.
17 maggio 2025
E da una delle più recenti edizioni del Music Unlimited di Wels proviene Monster, album che ritrae il concerto di Joe McPhee, Susanna Gartmayer, John Edwards e Mariá Portugal del 10 novembre 2023. Lo pubblica or ora l'austriaca Klanggalerie.
https://www.klanggalerie.com/gg512
https://klanggalerie.bandcamp.com/album/monster
16 maggio 2025
Lunga l'attesa invece per l'Unlimited 39 a Wels (Austria), ma già iniziano a circolare notizie, anticipazioni, date e programma: si terrà dal 7 al 9 novembre presso l'Alter Schlachthof e altre sedi cittadine, al consueto serrato ritmo di concerti pomeridiani e serali con la partecipazione di musicisti di varia provenienza e generazione, alcuni molto affezionati al festival e assai ricorrenti nelle sue diverse edizioni. Per l'occasione saranno in mostra anche le splendide immagini di Luciano Rossetti.
https://www.facebook.com/musicunlimitedwels
https://www.lucianorossetti.it
15 maggio 2025
14 maggio 2025
Nel ristretto numero di concerti attualmente in programma in Europa del Kronos Quartet - nella nuova formazione con Gabriela Díaz e Ayane Kozasa, dopo la dipartita degli storici John Sherba e Hank Dutt - c'è anche quello di Vicenza: domani sera al Teatro Olimpico, alle 20.30.
13 maggio 2025
Un lavoro di Bernard Parmegiani (1927-2016) risalente ai primi anni Novanta ma rimasto finora inedito è ora pubblicato da Sub Rosa con il titolo Lac Noir-La Serpente, aggiungendo spunti di interesse e curiosità nella produzione già varia e multiforme del geniale compositore parigino, tra i più illustri campioni dell'acusmatica: un filone narrativo unificante (una donna-serpente vista/non vista in Transilvania), la scoperta manipolazione di fonti autentiche del folklore rumeno (con la complicità di Christian Zanési), la destinazione d'uso dei materiali sonori (un'eccentrica opera multimediale di Emmanuel Raquin-Lorenzi). E con almeno un brano che farà breccia nel cuore dei pinkfloydiani più devoti a More e Ummagumma.
12 maggio 2025
Iancu Dumitrescu è in concerto questa sera a Bologna assieme all'Hyperion International Ensemble in assetto inedito - ove figurano comunque i fedelissimi Tim Hodgkinson e Chris Cutler - per presentare cinque sue nuove composizioni 'aperte': Supradynamic Music, Axis Mundi, Cycloides, Spectogramme e Stellar Points. Al Teatro San Leonardo, con inizio alle ore 20.30.
11 maggio 2025
Il Nostro è stato in passato fonte di ispirazione anche per l'artista e performer multimediale tedesca Nika Breithaupt - interessata a indagare 'il confine imperscrutabile tra autorappresentazione e appropriazione, tra ripetizione e unicità, tra copia e imitazione, tra tentativo e fallimento' - che da un celebre documento parigino desunto in forma degradata da YouTube trasse l'idea (era il 2012) per un proprio trittico in formato audio, video e stampa: Karaoke - To W(y)att.
http://www.nikason.de/sound/nika-son
http://www.nikason.de/works/karaoke
http://www.nikason.de/works/not-nit-not-nit-no-not
10 maggio 2025
Il film di animazione Rock Bottom (2024) sceneggiato e diretto da María Trénor debutta in Regno Unito con una doppia proiezione oggi e domani al Flatpack Festival di Birmingham. Lo introduce brevemente Asya Draganova, sociologa esperta di musica popolare contemporanea e curatrice del corposo studio The Canterbury Sound in Popular Culture (Emerald Publishing, 2021).
Flatpack is a mobile arts organisation which exists to show amazing work, bring people together and develop new ideas. We love film in all shapes and sizes, particularly where it bumps up against other artforms, and get a kick out of transforming spaces to create unforgettable events. Every May you can find us taking over venues across Birmingham with the "magnificently eclectic" Flatpack Festival, while throughout the year we pop up all over the place with everything from family activities to al fresco horror.
09 maggio 2025
Un recente coming out wyattiano è quello di Lorenzo Mattotti, disegnatore e illustratore di fama intervenuto a inizio aprile al festival parigino Italissimo - per il quale tra l'altro ha realizzato grafica e manifesto - soffermandosi su Rock Bottom (e in particolare su Alifib, ma citando altrettanto Grateful Dead, Nick Drake, Lou Reed, Peter Gabriel e Ezio Bosso). L'intervento completo, in conversazione con Manuela Corigliano, si trova su YT.
On ne présente plus Lorenzo Mattotti qui, cette année encore, a offert à Italissimo une inoubliable affiche et nous rend régulièrement visite avec ses dernières créations. Une rencontre qui interrogera l’influence de la musique sur son travail, pour faire le lien entre le son et l’image. Il évoquera les musiques à l’origine de ses images et dessinera sur scène. Une rencontre à écouter et à voir.
http://www.italissimofestival.com
https://www.youtube.com/mattotti
08 maggio 2025
Varia un po' l'immagine di copertina ma il contenuto è identico - anche nella sequenza - nelle due versioni in cd (o in doppio vinile) prodotte da ReR Megacorp e da EM Records. E immutata è la dedica a un caro e comune amico: Haiku in The Wide World, di Tim Hodgkinson e Atsuko Kamura.
The Haiku in The Wide World project is a 64 minute long CD containing 37 musical settings of Haiku poems, translated from the Japanese by poet Harry Gilonis, spoken in English by Tim Hodgkinson and sung in Japanese by Atsuko Kamura. Composed for voice, piano, percussion, harp, violin, viola, clarinets, french horn, acoustic and electric guitars, electronic and concrète sounds, and recorded in Tokyo & London, this 37-part sonic renga has a compositional approach that relishes surprises for the ear, narrative twists and unexpected outcomes.
07 maggio 2025
E al Cafe Oto non è certo la prima volta che viene e si intrattiene, in molti e vari modi. Accade di nuovo stasera, in solo: Fred Frith.
06 maggio 2025
Potrebbe davvero essere l'unica presentazione di quest'anno in Regno Unito del suo nuovo lavoro discografico, Anatomy: a Londra, al Cafe Oto, questa sera Sally Potter pronuncia il suo canto d'amore per la Terra. Assieme ad amici carissimi.
"Anatomy is a sequence of songs that chart the passionate love, destructive human behaviours, spiritual longings, physical dependencies and rampant exploitation that make up our turbulent love affair with the planet we inhabit. Whilst most of us feel deeply attached to those we are closest to, whether family, friends or lovers, there is often a disconnect with the land - especially if we live in cities - and with places and people far away. The causal chain, the consequences of our actions, seems remote. Anatomy makes the links between the individual human body, our collective body (our species), and the body of the Earth, with songs of solace and protest, creating a space in which to contemplate and feel the unthinkable."
05 maggio 2025
Prodotto e trasmesso nel 2005 per il programma Between the Ears della BBC Radio 3 è tornato giorni fa in circolazione come episodio a sé stante uno dei migliori esempi delle trascorse collaborazioni tra Peter Blegvad e il Langham Research Centre: Guest + Host = Ghost, con aforismi di Marcel Duchamp, citazioni di Edward Gorey e la voce narrante di Nick Cave. Su Bandcamp.
Guest + Host = Ghost is a title filched by Peter Blegvad with great respect from Marcel Duchamp. This half hour radio play was made for the experimental strand on BBC Radio 3 called Between the Ears, and it features readings with a gothic frosting by Nick Cave. The play charts a journey into one man's isolation. Our narrator is consigned to a flotation tank in an attempt to beat the world record for sensory deprivation. He's visited by doubtful guests of the mind as his desire for solitude collides with his social instincts and thoughts of his lost love, Esperanza. The program uses Edward Gore's Tale, the Doubtful Guest and other literary illustrations to explore the ambiguities of disengagement and using music techniques specially developed by Langham Research Centre, in this configuration Felix Carey, Iain Chambers, and Philip Tagney.
04 maggio 2025
In un'interessante conversazione con Martin Schray e Paul Acquaro del Free Jazz Collective, Markus Müller - ora titolare, e non solo curatore, della storica etichetta FMP dopo la morte di Jost Gebers - parla dei rapporti di piena fiducia con la vedova Anna Maria Ostendorff, delle relazioni assai buone con Corbett v Dempsey, Trost e l'editrice Wolke, delle prossime pubblicazioni sia in digitale sia su supporto fisico di inediti e rarità in catalogo, del graduale trasferimento di uffici e archivi da Borken a Berlino e dei festeggiamenti per l'inaugurazione dei nuovi spazi nella capitale. Con un'incredibile (e benaugurante) coincidenza di indirizzo, trattandosi dell'ex sede del quotidiano Neues Deutschland in Franz-Mehring-Platz 1: cioè FMP1.
http://www.fmp-label.de
https://www.freejazzblog.org/markus-muller
03 maggio 2025
Si ritirò dalle scene una dozzina di anni fa con parole molto nette di rinuncia e disaffezione, ora torna a farsi sentire - e a far parlare di sé - contemporaneamente in duo (con Mark Sanders), in trio (con Sanders e Paul Rogers) e in quartetto (con Adrian Uttley, Jim Barr e Sebastian Rochford). Due etichette amiche, Jazz in Britain e Discus Music, accolgono con entusiasmo il suo ripensamento, pubblicandone quasi insieme i nuovissimi album Aurora e Cup & Ring: Larry Stabbins.
"I’ve been playing the saxophone and flute and writing music for a long time now. I mean, a really long time. I played a lot with Keith Tippett, in Centipede and lots of his other bands, with Peter Brötzmann - the Godfather of heavy tenor players - and in several of master percussionist Tony Oxley’s groups. I played in Weekend and formed Working Week with guitarist Simon Booth and we made lots of records and did a vast amount of touring. Since then I've had different projects of my own across the range of my interests from totally improvised small groups and solo performances to jazz rap, free-jazz techno-funk, psychedelic hip hop and freeish spiritual jazz. I sometimes feel the need to get away from music and do something else to recharge my batteries but it always draws me back. And I'm back to it again now. Fully recharged."
https://www.larrystabbins.com
https://jazzinbritain1.bandcamp.com/album/aurora
https://discusmusic.bandcamp.com/album/cup-ring
02 maggio 2025
Un loro bel concerto di tre anni fa al Cafe Oto a Londra lo si è poi ritrovato tramite Bandcamp; oggi li si può seguire nuovamente, in presenza o in live streaming da Bonn: Chris Biscoe, Kazuhisa Uchihashi e Roger Turner, The Swipe Trio. Al Dialograum Kreuzung an St. Helena, con inizio alle ore 20.00.
01 maggio 2025
Chi vuole estendere oltre la notte conoscenze e curiosità eventualmente stuzzicate dalla giornata intenzionale del jazz appena trascorsa può affidarsi a Cherry Red Records (e a Duncan Heining) per un buon risveglio a base di Ian Carr, Graham Bond, Mike Westbrook con la Concert Band di Celebration, Michael Garrick, Graham Collier, John McLaughlin, Jack Bruce, Kenny Wheeler, Michael Gibbs, Bob Downes, Norma Winstone, John Surman, Mike Osborne, Nucleus, Julie Driscoll - suo il brano che intitola l'intera raccolta - e Brian Auger tra i molti altri: A New Awakening - Adventures in British Jazz 1966-1971. "Celebrating an exciting, revolutionary time in British jazz when musical boundaries were stretched or ignored and new identities forged."
30 aprile 2025
E tra i più importanti ascolti suggeriti sulle pagine del numero di aprile di Musica Jazz spicca l'album di debutto della Band of Bands di Mike Westbrook, uscito in cd a primavera l'anno scorso e tuttora disponibile, anche in formato digitale, tramite Bandcamp e Westbrook Records. La formazione, è noto, oltre a Mike e Kate Westbrook comprende Chris Biscoe, Pete Whyman, Karen Street, Marcus Vergette e Coach York. Una raccolta di recensioni sia dell'album sia delle sue (rare) presentazioni dal vivo è curata da Chris Topley al WestbrookJazz. Chi vuole trova anche i file con tutti i testi, un brano aggiuntivo (Illusions) e le parti scritte di due brani, Yellow Dog e My Lover's Coat, reinterpretati dall'attuale settetto ma risalenti entrambi allo splendido Fine 'n Yellow (2009), opera allora di Mike con Kate, Biscoe, Whyman, Steve Berry e Jon Hiseman.
“A band for all seasons from composers with a gift for conjuring up the gladness of hearts. Here’s to Life!”
https://www.westbrookjazz.co.uk
https://mikewestbrook.bandcamp.com/mike-westbrook-band-of-bands
https://www.westbrookjazz.co.uk/BandOfBands/bofb-cd-reviews.shtml
https://www.westbrookjazz.co.uk/BandOfBands/bofb-reviews.shtml
29 aprile 2025
28 aprile 2025
Quando uscì per Ambiances Magnétiques l'album del debutto (nel 1996) il quartetto tutto chitarristico di Fred Frith con René Lussier, Nick Didkovsky e Mark Stewart - quest'ultimo subentrato quasi subito a Mark Howell - già godeva di grande favore e di intensa esposizione al pubblico di club e festival un po' ovunque. A quasi trent'anni di distanza torna ora disponibile in formato digitale via Bandcamp, e lo stesso accadrà a breve per il successivo Upbeat, con qualche ritocco (e diversa immagine di copertina): Ayaya Moses.
27 aprile 2025
Nessuno poteva saperlo allora, ma quello a Pisa, il 18 luglio 2023, fu il loro ultimo concerto. David Thomas con Keith Moliné, Alex Ward, Gagarin e Kiersty Boon: Pere Ubu.
26 aprile 2025
La rivista The Wire estrae dai propri archivi alcuni articoli su David Thomas - uno dei quali scritto direttamente da lui - e li offre in libera lettura nella versione online: "David Thomas and Pere Ubu were featured in The Wire early on in the life of the magazine, when it was still primarily concerned with jazz and improvised music. Thomas was first interviewed in 1985 in issue 16. In the 90s there were other major articles: a Pere Ubu proto-Primer, an Invisible Jukebox interview, and in 1993 Thomas himself wrote an article about travelling through the former Soviet Union and the music he encountered there. Then in 2006 he was featured on the cover of the magazine. To mark his passing, we have made these articles free to read in the online library."
https://www.thewire.co.uk/david-thomas-14-june-1953-23-april-2025